Testing: Day 11

Word Count: 66,016

Summary of Events:

Gabriel came to call on Ivy again, which didn't impress her, but, she let him stay until he was finished talking and left of his own accord. Gabriel worked with Jude some more and thought about how he loved horses, and how he hoped he might be able to purchase Jude, and the logistical difficulties of owning a stallion, a mare, and a gelding, especially with the stallion not being fully tamed. Ivy spent some time in thought about Gabriel, the Bramwells, and the thing she wanted most in life.

Excerpt of the Day:

"It had been some time since Mr. Raider had visited, for which Ivy was on one hand thankful, and on one hand surprised. He'd let her be for one day at the most before, but now it'd been several days.

She was pleased, and hoped that he'd finally said all he wanted to say and was going to leave her alone. She didn't like what he had to say to her. She enjoyed spending time with the Bramwells and hearing their discussions about different things that didn't pertain at all to what Mr. Raider felt she had to do.

They talked about Thomas, and reminisced and cried, but they didn't try to tell her that she was wrong for thinking God had robbed her of Thomas; they all wanted him back as much as she did.

Sometimes they even talked about things that had nothing to do with Thomas, or with God, which Ivy was finding to actually become a bit more of a relief the more she listened to it.

At first she'd been upset, and felt like they were disgracing Thomas' memory by not talking of him, but she'd thought about it, and Thomas hadn't been one who really cared to be the centre of attention, he'd liked talking about a wide variety of subjects.

He would be pleased to hear his family talking of things other than him, despite the fact that he would never be among their conversations, and he would probably have been highly embarrassed if he would've actually been present while they'd been talking about him all the time.

Thomas would've wanted things to go back to normal. There was work to get done, there were other things to do and think about other than him.

It was hard to do, though. Thomas meant so much to all of them, and Ivy felt he'd meant the most to her. She'd talked of him often — although not much in his presence — even when he'd been alive.

Of course, when a person loved someone else, that person often became the focus of their attentions, and they were hard pressed to think of something else without that person coming to be involved in their thoughts in one way or another.

She didn't really know what else to talk about either. It'd been such an elating idea to think that she would finally be getting married. When Anna had accepted Walter's proposal Ivy had first been upset, but then she'd watched with rapture the whole process, and then and there, at the age of ten, turning eleven, decided that she wanted to get married and have a man to love her as much as Walter loved Anna.

That was still her dream, but now that she was without Thomas, how was she supposed to realise it?"